Jinjuriki Compound
by Winterstar6437
Summary: Deciding that the way Jinjuriki are treated is unfair, Jiraiya decides to make things a bit better.
1. Taken

**Chapter 1: Taken**

One night, after all the tailed beasts had been sealed in jinjuriki, a shadow appeared in the hidden villages, cast a strong sleeping jutsu over the jinjuriki and stole them from their villages, bringing them to a clearing one by , the mysterious figure fell to his knees and rested for a bit, trying to recover his chakra. While he rested, he crawled over to the sleeping jjinjuriki and made them hold hands. He then flashed them to an undisclosed location on top of a large pile of pillows. He then collapsed from chakra exhaustion and fell into a dreamless sleep.

 **With Naruto:**

"Hey kit, finally come to visit me I see," the nine tails said, staring at the four year old Naruto.

" Who are you? Where am I? I don't remember coming to a sewer with a giant fox," Naruto asked, tearing up like a lost child. (which he was)

" I'm the Nine Tailed Fox kid, and you are in your own mind. right now you have been taken from your village and brought to what I assume is a safe location," the fox explained.

"I was taken from the village? I guess that's okay, no one will really care if I'm gone and the villagers were a bunch of meanie pantses," Naruto said, sitting down against one of the bars that caged the fox in " Why are you in my mind Mr. Fox, shouldn't I be the only one in my mind?"

" I was sealed inside you kit, so of course I would be in your mind. I'm the reason that the people of your village were such big 'meanie pantses' as you say. Who they really hated was me, but they directed their hate at you and for that I'm sorry."

"It's okay , you didn't mean for it to happen, so why would I blame you?" Naruto said, flashing a big smile. "What's your name anyway? Nine Tailed fox doesn't really sound like a name to me."

The fox gave a large, barking laugh. " Well you got me there kit, my name's Kurama."

"Ku-ram-a? That's much too hard to say, how about Kura-kun instead?"

"You want to call one of the most powerful demons in the world who has ruined your life up til now, Kura-kun? Are you crazy?!" Kurama asked incredulously.

"Does that mean that I can't?" Naruto asked, tearing up, giving Kurama puppy dog eyes.

Kurama sighed, bowing his head in defeat. "Well... I guess you can, if you really want to that badly." he sighed again, "It's a good thing that your cute, kid."

"Yay! Kura-kun! Kura-kun!" Naruto crowed out happily, dancing around in a little circle.

"Yes, yes, I get that your happy, now will you leave me alone, it's about time for you to wake up anyway." Kurama growled out, annoyed.

"Okay Kura-kun, whatever you say! I'll come to visit you later!" Naruto said before his presence disappeared from his mindscape.

Jinjuriki:

1 tails- Gaara (four years old)

2 tails- Yugito (9 years old)

3 tails- Yagura (11 years old)

4 tails- Roshi (11 years old)

5 tails- Han (16 years old)

6 tails- Utakata (7 years old)

7 tails-Fu (2 years old)

8 tails- Killer B (14 years old)

9 tails- Naruto (4 years old)


	2. Chapter 2

Once Naruto had left his mindscape, he woke up to find himself surrounded by strangers. He carefully crawled to the only adult in the group and tapped on his shoulder to wake him up. Once the stranger was awake, he asked, "Where am I? Who are you, and who are these people here?"

The stranger frowned at him and yawned, sitting up. "Its still late kid, just go back to sleep, I'll explain everything to everyone in the morning." He said, turning back over to sleep.

At his response, Naruto's face brightened. "Yay! A nice mister that isn't calling me a monster! This is awesome! You're the first person to treat me like a kid instead of some monster or animal or something! Thank you so much mister!" he exclaimed, doing his best to hug him from behind.

Shocked at Naruto's words, the man just turned around and gave Naruto this small, heartbroken smile before hugged him back. Inwardly wondering at how horribly Naruto was treated, and how such simple things could bring him such joy, the man just held him closer and laid back down. "Your welcome kid, now lets just go back to sleep okay? I'll explain everything in the morning."

Naruto just nodded slightly and relaxed into the stranger's embrace, relaxing into the first friendly human contact he'd had in a long time and peacefully slipping off to sleep once again.

In the morning, when the man woke up, he carefully disentangled himself from Naruto and started to wake all the children up. Paranoid as a result of years of mistreatment from their respective villages, 6 of the jinjuriki either showed great animosity towards the man or carefully backed themselves into corners arming themselves and preparing to defend themselves in case of an attack, carefully scanning everyone in the room for any sign of a threat. The three that did not react this way were Garra, who trusted his sand to protect him, Naruto, who already like the man for his kindness to him the night before, and Fu, who was simply too young to quite understand what was going on.  
Naruto just blinked at the other Jinjuriki before smiling and introducing himself.

"Hi! My name is Uzumaki Naruto! You guys won't be mean like the villagers, will you?" he asked, looking somewhat vulnerable as he looked at the other children.

The other jinjuriki just stared at Naruto and sighed relaxing at Naruto's question since he didn't seem threatening at the least. Gaara stared and shrugged and followed Naruto's example. "Nice to meet you Naruto, I'm Gaara, and no I won't be mean like the villagers, maybe you can be my first friend," Gaara suggested.

Naruto's eyes widened at that. "Really! I've never had a friend before! I'd love to be your friend!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, tackling Gaara with a hug.

Gaara blinked a him, shocked that his sand hadn't stopped Naruto, before smiling and cheering at gaining his first friend.

Fu then walked up to the two and lightly pulled on Naruto's pant-leg and in her slightly jumbled language, said " I want friend too, village mean, you not, right?" Fu asked, eyes bearing into their very souls. (A.N.:Talented 2 year old, isn't she?)

Naruto just grinned at her, unfazed by her searching gaze, sure that he could be a good friend, despite the fact that he had never experienced friendship.  
"Of course! I'm sure that we can be great friends!" He shouted excitedly, throwing his fist up in the air, thrilled about making his first two friends.

Naruto then turned to the man who had brought them all there. "Hey mister, you said you would explain why we're all here in the morning, and it's morning now," Naruto said, basically demanding an explanation. Once Naruto had said this, everyone in the room glared at the man. The guy scratched his head and sighed. Alright, first things first. My name is Jiraiya, and I'm the one who took you from all of your villages." he explained, ruffling his spiky white hair he looked at each of them in turn and frowning since most of them were still regarding him with great caution. He just mentally shrugged and continued. " I took you all from your villages because of the way you were treated. I thought that it was really unfair of them to hate you all and treat you so unfairly because of something that you can't control, so I stole you all from your villages and brought you here," he told them. they blinked at his words and looked at everyone in the room, noticing the cuts and bruises on everyone. The bandages that were wrapped around the larger wounds on everyone. "There's a reason all of your villages hated you guys, and I just thought that I could maybe take you guys and raise you all together, away from their hatred." he finished, looking around again to see their reactions.

Naruto stared at him hard and then went up to him and tugged on his pants to get his attention. "Jiraiya, do they hate me because of Kura-kun?" he asked.

Jiraiya just stared at him. "Kura-kun? Who's that?" he questioned, feeling confused.

Naruto stared back, his eyes shining before he exclaimed "Kura-kun is the big fox in my mind! I met him yesterday when you had us knocked out! He's really nice compared to the villagers!"

The others stared at him confused while Jiraiya just stared at him, dumbfounded.

"What!" everyone exclaimed.


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto stared at them innocently, completely unaware that what he just said was completely mind blowing. Jiraiya stared at Naruto trying to comprehend what he just said. "If I got this right, and correct me if I'm wrong Naruto, you met the Nine-tails when I knocked you out and then made sort of friends with him and then became sort of friends with him, and then decided to call him Kura-kun?" Jiraiya questioned incredulously.

Naruto's head tilted to the side. "Friends?" Naruto asked "Wait, let me see if I can ask."

 _'Kura-kun? Can you hear me? Kura-kun?'_ Naruto asked

 _'Yeah, I hear you kid, no need to yell. What do you need Naruto?'_

 _'Are we friends?'_  
 _'_ _Only if you want to be, kid.'_

Naruto's eyes went wide with joy. _'We're friends! We're friends!'_ he crowed mentally.

 _'Yeah kid, I guess we are'_ Kurama said, sounding just the slightest bit happy. _'By the way,how did you know that we could communicate telepathically?'_

 _'Tela-pathic-ally?'_ Naruto asked.

 _'In your head'_ Kurama reiterated.

 _'You were in my mind, so I thought that I'd give it a try.'_

 _'Smart kid'_

 _'Thanks!'_

 _'Time to go back kid, the people your with are getting worried since it's sort of just fell into a trance and just stopped doing anything.'_

 _'Oh, guess I'll be going then! Talk to you later Kura-kun!'_

 _'Next time just call out my name, I'll respond.'_

 _'Got it! Bye!'_

Naruto blinked back to the present only to find Fuu, Gaarra, and Jiriaya looking at him worriedly. He simply turned to Jiriaya and said "I asked, and Kura-kun said that we would only be friends if I wanted to, so yes we are friends.

Everyone just gaped at him.

A sudden thought startled Gaara and he suddenly looked as worried as a 4 year old could possibly look.

He frantically pulled at Jiriaya's pants until he got his attention. "What is it kid," Jiriaya asked rather gruffly.

"How could you put me to sleep! I'm not allowed to sleep! If I sleep, something bad will happen!" Gaara asked frantically, scared out of his mind.

Jiriaya scratched the back of his head, trying to figure out a way to explain it to a four year old without telling them the secret of the Jinjuriki. He sighed as he gave up and simply said "You can rest easy for now, I fixed the problem, so you can sleep normally now."

Gaara stared at him doubtfully but figured it was okay because the room he woke up in looked okay. He excepted this and resolved to ask about it later.

"Now then, Those of you who are over the age of eight, please come with me," Jiraiya called, heading out of the room.

Everyone except Utakata, Gaara, Fuu, and Naruto got up and followed him, still quite cautious around him and the others.

Jiraiya sighed and made a mental note to try his best to gain their trust while leading them into a separate room. After getting everyone settled Jiraiya explained about the Jinjuiki and the reason behind the villager's hatred. 

Meanwhile, in the villages...

The villagers were all thinking something along the lines of good riddance in the face of the Jinjurki's collective disappearance while the kage were frantically sending messages back and forth, trying to figure out where all the Jinjuriki had gone.


	4. Chapter 4

After about half a year of living together, everyone had become tentative friends. After one year, Tsunade and Shizune joined them, basically disappearing off the map with them. All of the jinjuriki regarded them with caution at first, but eventually everyone let their guards down and came to trust the two. Since before being kidnapped Yugito, Yagura, Roshi, Han, Utakata, and Killer B had already begun their ninja training Jiraiya decided to continue their training, teaching them as much as he could. After Tsunade and Shizune arrived, they took over some of the training too, teaching them about pressure points and basic first aid. After about six months of training under all three of them, Jiraiya had a pretty good idea of their strength. He set up a system of special kunai with the Flying Thunder God space-time jutsu formula that Minato favored. He gave them to the leaders of all of the countries that didn't have a ninja village, telling each leader to drop some blood on it if they ever needed ninja to for emergencies. The adults would flash there and check to make sure that there weren't any ninja from the jinjuriki's home villages nearby and Han, Roshi, Yagura, and Killer B took turns forming a team and taking care of such missions under the supervision of one of the tree adults. The others were told that they would be allowed to go on mission as well when they were 10.

Naruto(with Kurama's help)realized that Fuu and Gaara had some 'giant animal' in them too so they would sit down together and under Kurama's guidance (instructions told to them by Naruto) learned to meditate and communicate with their 'giant animals' they all became good friends with their 'giant animals' and because their names were hard for two and four year-olds to pronounce, they were promptly nicknamed Shu-kun and Mei-chan.(With the biju'ssomewhat reluctant agreement of course. The six became close enough to be family and eventually opened a mind link- credit to the biju. The three children soon learned to keep a straight face o continue to act normal regardless of the circumstances as is befitting a ninja. This was so that they wouldn't suddenly burst out laughing when one of them said something funny. As it was, they were getting together great and having lots of fun as the others trained and went on missions.

After about two years, Jiraiya realized that all three of them were on speaking terms with their biju and asked how. After that, all the jijuriki learned to meditate and got on proper speaking terms with their biju.

When Gaara and Naruto turned five, Jiraiya started to train them to become ninja as well. Since Fuu was the only one that hadn't started train Shizune trained with her for chakra control and had her help with the chores includin cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry. The older kids helped out when they weren't training of course.

When Fuu turned five she began formal training as well.

Whenever one of the Jinjuriki turned eight, Jiraiya told them the truth about the biju.

They soon came to regard each other as family. For his ninth birthday, Kurama told Naruto a secret, all of the tailed beasts gives their users special abilities. With this revelation, all of the jinjuriki started to train with their biju to master these abilities.


	5. Chapter 5

When Gaara, Naruto, and Fuu got old enough for missions, it was decided that they could go on missions regardless of whether or not there were ninja from their home villages in the area since they were still very young when they were pulled from their villages. Now that all of the jinjuriki were at least ten, some of the older ones were leading the missions for the younger ones. Now that they were 12, Naruto and Gaara were a little better than chunin level but still not quite up to jounin level. Since they were not taking training missions like most villages would, the rule was that they had to be about chunin level to go on missions- not that this really stopped any of them, since they all hit chunin level by the age of ten(the older ones were about/almost chunin level when they were pulled once they got control).

While almost all of the older jinjuriki were out on missions, Naruto, Gaara, and Fuu (under the watchful eye of Yagura) were playing with their summons after Kura-kun, Mei-chan and Shu-kun taught them how to. Naruto and Gaara tackling and being tackled by foxes and tanukies respectively while Fuu flew around the air, racing progressively larger rhinoceros beetles.

Yagura watched them with a small smile on his face. Suddenly the special kunai in the Wave Country was activated by blood so Yagura made a shadow clone who teleported to the Wave Country to see what the mission was.

When he got there, he was surprised to find a woman with long blue-black hair inside a slightly run down home. She looked uncertain and scared. At this point, Yagura remembered that the wave country didn't really have a leader, everything was discussed by the villagers. Though he was a bit unsettled, he shook it off and bowed to her. "Hello, I am Yagura from the Tēru. What was the mission that you have requested us for?"

She bowed in return. "Hello, I'm Tsunami. I want to request some help, but I was expecting someone a bit older. You look maybe 12 years old." she said, frowning a bit.

"I'll have you know that I'm 19 already, I just happen to be a bit short." Yagura grumbled. "Just tell me your request and I'll see what I can do."

Tsunami still looked a bit skeptical but sighed and told him anyway. " A man named Gato has taken over the island. He is monopolizing all trade and oppressing the people. My father is trying to change things by building a bridge, but Gato is constantly threatening him and his workers. He is being escorted back by some ninja from the leaf village, but we don't have enough money to pay for something of this rank, so I fear that they won't be enough."

Yagura nodded to show that he understood the situation and said "If you can't pay the leaf village for the properly ranked mission, then I suppose you don't have enough to pay us either."

"No, we don't have enough to pay you guys." Tsunami said sadly, thinking that Yagura would refuse.

Yagura thought a bit then shrugged. "I guess you guys will just have to owe us one. We'll take the mission, but I have to warn you that the only team available at the moment is our most junior members. However, I promise that they are very capable. I will go get them. Drop some blood on the formula kunai in about 5 minutes. We should be ready by then." With that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Yagura blinked as he got the details of the mission. He clapped his hands together and announced "We have a mission guys."

Fuu, Naruto, and Gaara immediately stopped playing and their summons popped back to their respective homes. They ran to pack and were ready in 2 minutes. They then sat in a circle holding hands and waiting for the summons as Yagura explained the mission details to them. They were summoned just as Yagura finished explaining.

•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•

"Hello!" the three youngest greeted as soon as they spotted Tsunami. They bowed in unison "Thank you for giving us this mission!" they shouted. Fuu and Naruto then ran off excitedly to explore the house and the surrounding area as Gaara followed after them at a more sedate pace.  
Tsunami blinked in shock and just turned to Yagura for a explanation.  
Yagura shrugged and explained. "Our home is rather spacious, but none of us are allowed out unless we're on a mission. If someone were to discover our identities we might be targeted for something that none of us has control over. They've been in the same place almost as far back as they can remember. I can understand that their a little excited."  
Tsunami was about to say something, but before she could they heard the children shouting for Yagura.

Yagura ran out of the house, followed by a concerned Tsunami. When they got to the children, they were relieved to find the children completely fine (Tsunami) and not causing trouble (Yagura). When they looked passed them, however, they were shocked to find two kids, one boy(Sasuke) and one girl(Sakura), and a tanned, elderly man wearing a large bamboo hat(Tazuna), scratched up and collapsed on the ground. After they got there, two adult ninja,(Iruka and Kakashi) appeared as well, also completely exhausted and supporting each other.

"FATHER!" Tsunami shouted as she dashed passed the children, rushing to her father. She hurriedly checked him for injuries.

Yagura sighed, dragged the children forward and made them each take a ninja back to the house. Gaara took one of the adult ninja, using sand from the gourd on his back to catch the ninja behind the knees and knock him onto a hand of sand. He walked back towards the house with the sand carrying the ninja trailing behind him. Yagura caught the ninja with a mask covering half of his face and supported him back to the house. Fuu picked the pink haired girl up off the ground and carried her back to the house piggy-back style, receiving a small murmur of thanks before the girl fainted. Naruto watched as Tsunami dragged her father back to her house before pulling the black haired boy up off the ground, carrying him piggy-back style back to the house with the boy protesting his position all the while.

Once everyone was settled and Tsunami was satisfied that her father was not too badly injured, everyone settled into the living room. Yagura glared at the exhausted white haired ninja, who he recognized from the list of ninja to be wary of that he had been given, thinking that he should have been able to handle whatever happened on the way here.

"What happened? Isn't that man the one who you were hired to protect? How did you manage to get into so much trouble that you guys got here in this state?" Yagura asked semi-calmly.

Kakashi stared at him duly with his one uncovered eye. He quirked his eyebrow and asked "And who are you? Some kid with no relation to this mission? From what I've seen you don't seem to be very close to this family."

Yagura sighed and explained, "I'm Yagura. My group and I were asked to be here as extra protection for the bridge builder because Tsunami was a bit worried since she knew that her father would not have enough money to pay for proper protection. I think she was right to do so, since even though you're jonin, Kakashi of the Sharingan, the two children with you seem to be genin just barely out of the academy, and the other adult with you doesn't look all that strong."

The girl, Sakura, scoffed, crossing her arms, "Like your group is any better. A group of four kids ranging from what, 9-13? I bet Sasuke can beat any one of you. He was the star of the academy after all."

"I'll have you know that I'm 19 already! And I bet that even Fuu, the youngest and least experienced of us, can take down this precious Sasuke of yours." Yagura spat out angrily.

Sasuke got scowled at this comment. "Oh really? I bet I could beat her hands down," he remarked angrily.

Fuu glanced at Yagura, a bit uncertain. She tugged on his shirt and asked "Are you sure I can beat him Yagura-nii? I've never won a single fight in my life."

Yagura turned to her and sighed. He patted her head, ruffling her hair a bit and then said "That's because you only ever have real fights with Naruto and Gaara , who are 2 years your senior, and you've never been on a mission where you've really had to fight since you just turned ten barely a month ago and haven't been on many missions. You probably have about the same amount of experience those two genin have, and your skills are probably far superior. If you were to fight, I would be more worried for your opponent than you, and I just know you'd make me proud with how well we've all taught you."

Fuu beamed up at him, hugged him and whispered a small "Thank-you Yagura-nii."

Naruto happily jumped on Fuu's back, knocking both Fuu and Yagura down. He happily shouted, "Yeah, Fuu! You've been getting better! Last time we fought you lasted a whole 2 hours! You've gotten a lot better since we've started fighting each other! The only reason you haven't beaten one of us yet is because Gaara and I have been improving right along with you!"

Fuu pouted at him a bit. "But Naruto-nii!" Fuu whined, "Every time you and Gaara-nii fight you both last 4 hours and you basically take turns winning against each other. Plus, my time against against Gaara-nii hasn't improved one bit! I can still only fight for about and hour before he beats me!"

Gaara smiled a bit at their antics. Shaking his head he calmly said "That's only because you haven't found an effective way to counter my attacks yet. Though Naruto and I are indeed at the same skill level, and his attacks are surprising and spontaneous, the way I attack is unorthodox and therefore harder for you to counter. You've improved a lot though."

"Thanks!" Fuu exclaimed as she grinned up at him.

At this point, Sasuke had heard enough. He abruptly stood up and stalked up to the four Tēru members, and huffily spat out, "If you think you're so great, then you have another thing coming. I challenge you to a fight." He then turned around and stormed out of the house.

Fuu and Naruto bounded out of the house after him with Gaara following them at a more sedate pace.

Kakashi and Yagura glanced at each other. "I'll tell you what happened if Fuu wins" Kakashi drawled out.

Yagura smirked at that and nodded in agreement before following the kids outside.


	6. Chapter 6

Recap: Sasuke got mad because everyone who knew Fuu told her that she could beat him in a fight. Therefore- he challenged her to a fight. Kakashi and Yagura agreed that if Fuu won then Kakashi would have to tell the Teru squad what happened To get team seven plus Iruka in such a bedraggled state.

Sasuke and Fuu stopped walking as they got to the small clearing in front of Tsunami's house, right on the other side of the small pond with a bridge that led up to the house. The ones that followed them stopped about 10 yards away from them. Gaara's eyes widened a little before he tapped on Naruto's shoulder and whispered to him. When he finished, Naruto's eyes went wide as well. Gaara returned to his original position and Naruto ran up to Fuu in a panic. He quickly whispered to her and when he was finished, Fuu glanced at Naruto, whose eyes were begging, and sighed. "Fine," she complied to whatever Naruto had requested. Naruto smiled widely and gave her a quick hug before retreating back to Gaara's side.

Yagura stepped in between them and told them "You get ten minutes to fight since we don't have much time to waste. If one of you subdues the other in that time then that person wins. As always, you have ten seconds to get out of whatever hold your opponent has you subdued in. If neither of you are subdued then whoever received the most attacks will lose. We will be taking the power and the affect of the attack into account of course." Yagura stepped back and raised his hand straight up. "Alright, ready?" both fighters nodded. "Begin!" Yagura shouted, throwing down his hand to signal the start of the fight.

Fuu and Sasuke stared at each other, watching to see who if the other would make the first move. Sasuke, impatient and still a bit annoyed at the comments about how a little girl two years younger than him could beat him, watched Fuu for a few seconds before running forward to attack. He punched aiming for Fuu's face, Fuu leaned back to avoid the hit and used the momentum to flip back, kicking Sasuke in the chin twice as she flipped. She landed about a foot away from him and quickly rushed him while he was off balance, flipping him over her shoulder and changing his position in mid air so that he landed on his stomach. Fuu grabbed his arms and held them together behind his back, tying them together with a length of silk from her arm. **{A.N.: All members of Teru wear silk bindings on their arms. They were made by Fuu in her free time during the time when Naruto and Gaara was allowed to go out on missions and she was not. They are infused with chakra to make them strong enough to withstand a battle between Jinjuriki. Then can do more than that, but that's a surprise for later.}**

She glanced up at Yagura as he slowly counted to ten giving Sasuke time to try and escape. Sasuke struggled with his silk bindings, but was unable to escape. Fuu was declared the winner only one minute after the fight began.

Naruto cheered loudly for Fuu while Garra just stood silently and looked on, a small smile of pride just barely lifting his lips. Kakashi and Iruka stared in shock, wide eyed while Sakura shrilly complained that "No one should be able to beat Sasuke". Sasuke continued to struggled with his binds and Fuu jumped up and down, excited about winning a fight for the first time in her life. Yagura gave her a proud pat on the head and told her to untie Sasuke.

After she untied him, Sasuke gave her a venomous glare and stormed off into the woods to brood. As everyone watched him go, Yagura turned to Kakashi and stared. Kakashi sighed and glanced away, scratching his head awkwardly. He sighed and led the way back to the house. Everyone sat down in the living room and team Teru stared at Kakashi, waiting for him to explain.

"We need to get everything out of the way, so I'll just give you a brief summary of what happened on the way here," Kakashi said, glancing around. Seeing that everyone else in the room were just staring at him impatiently, he sweat dropped and began. "We were on our way here when we were attacked by two chunin level ninja. I pretended to fall so that I could see what their intentions were. Iruka and Sasuke dispatched the ninja and I concluded that they were after Tazuna. It turns out that he lied about the rank of the mission. Though this mission was a higher rank than what we were prepared for, we were *ahem* convinced to continue on with it. When we had gotten close, we were attacked by one of the seven swordsman, Zabuza. We fought and while I kept him occupied, Iruka got them out of there and told them to go ahead, putting Sasuke in charge. He then came back for me and broke me out of the water prison that Zabuza had caught me in with the intention of sending a water clone after Tazuna. After Iruka got me out, we took an indirect route to here, obscuring our tracks and covering the ones Sasuke, Sakura, and Tazuna made. you were there when we finally got here, so I suppose you know how that turned out. So who are you guys really? Why are you guys here? Based on that fight earlier I assume that all of you are pretty good fighters."

Yagura regarded him cooly. "I have no reason to tell you who we are, but as I have told you before, Tsunami has requested our aid and we are inclined to give it. We will be working together, but I don't intend to get overly friendly with your group. The children can do as they please, but I will intervene if I deem it necessary. We will do our best to cooperate with you until the end of this mission at which point we will part ways and hopefully not cross paths once more."

The room sat in stunned silence. Iruka silently wondered what could have happened in the past for Yagura to be regarding his group with open distrust in his eyes. Naruto, Garra, and Fuu glanced at each other and shrugged. They silently agreed to distract them and simultaneously jumped up, Naruto and Fuu complaining loudly about the atmosphere and dragging Yagura up off the couch and yelling about playing together and demanding that Yagura summon a large tortoise that they could ride on. Yagura though initially startled, simply smiled fondly at them and went along with them to the clearing and complied to their demands. Gaara followed them out, shrugging at Naruto's game suggestion.

A few minutes later the three children could be found hanging on to the shell on a rapidly spinning tortoise as Naruto and Fuu shrieked in delight and Gaara began regretting going along with Naruto's suggestion. With their bodies up in mid air as the tortoise spun, Iruka watched them with no small amount of concern. He freaked out as they all simultaneously let go of the tortoise's shell. There was nothing he could do however, as they rapidly flew through the air. As he closed his eyes, flinching, he missed what happened next. Gaara caught himself with his sand and Yagura jumped into the air, his staff with a hook on each end extended out . Naruto and Fuu casually righted themselves in mid air, allowing the collars of their clothes to be caught on the hooks, grabbing the front of their shirts so that their collars wouldn't choke them. Team Seven watched in astonishment as they all landed on safely back on the ground, Naruto and Fuu yelling "Again! Again!" before Yagura bopped them on the heads and scolded them for letting go and allowed the tortoise to dissappear with a poof. Fuu pouted but Naruto grinned, dragging her and Yagura along with him over to where Gaara was and rapidly went through hand signs, biting his thumb and summoning a fox large enough for all four of them to ride on. As it carted them around the field, the Konoha team watched them in shock, wondering just where Tsunami found these people.

That night, it was decided that they would guard the bridge in shifts with the Teru and Konoha teams switching off each day.


	7. Chapter 7

After the two teams agreed on the guard duty rotations, they emerged from the room that Tsunami allotted for them to stay in, just in time to hear the sound of a boy coming home.

"Mom, I'm home!"

"Welcome back, Inari. Come to the kitchen everyone, dinners ready." Tsunami called.

"Hey mom, who are these people?" Inari asked, joining everyone in the kitchen.

"The people with the forehead protectors are ninja from Konoha who your grandfather hired to guard him while he completes the bridge. The ones with silk wrappings on their arms are from that special kunai. I asked them to help out just in case." Tsunami explained.

Inari nodded and looked them over. "You all better give up now and go back to wherever you came from. You're all going to die. There's no way that you can beat Gato and his men."

"Inari!" Tsunami shouted, staring at Inari reproachfully.

"We're only here to help you know. We're trying to make things better for you. Don't you think your island has suffered enough at the hands of Gato?" Naruto asked.

Inari glared "Suffering? What do you know of suffering?" he asked "You haven't been here! You haven't suffered! I bet you live easy lives, being strong enough to protect yourselves."

All of the Teru team rounded on him at that exclamation.

"We don't know suffering? Don't be so sure of yourself kid. Everyone has suffering in their lives. Try being shunned by your entire village when you had done nothing wrong. Being called a demon or a monster. With no family to comfort you or protect you since they died on the day you were born. People started trying to kill me by the time I turned three. And whenever I fought back they all said "I knew he was a monster" I mean seriously! I just scratched up their arms for the most part. That on guy who's face I scratched up totally deserved it. He stabbed me in the gut with a kunai and twisted it around. That freaking hurt you know." Naruto ranted.

"Or how about being feared by your entire village and shunned by your family. Then the one person who ever showed me even a smidgen of kindness goes and tries to blow me up, which then gives way to a whole string of assassination attempts ordered by my father," Gaara added.

"Or being slapped whenever you cried. Being told monsters like you don't deserve to cry. I was two! Two year olds cry! So what?" Fuu added crossing her arms.

"Or how about being led into a death trap by people who had been your friends for years. They stabbed me several times with their kunai then left me in the hand of an enemy village who they knew would kill me. Don't say we don't know suffering kid. I can pretty assuredly say that with the exception of maybe Fuu, anyone from our group has suffered more than you. And the only reason Fuu didn't suffer more is because that old perv pulled us all put when she was two. I understand that your situation is pretty bad, but you can't very well believe that no one has ever had it as bad if not worse than you." Yagura looked down at his charges who's eyes were glazed over and were staring off into space. "Great, just great. Now you've got them stuck in memories of their past. I'm blaming this on you, Inari," he turned to Tsunami and smiled politely "I thank you for your hospitality, but I believe that I should keep them away from ninja since they're the ones who did this to us. We will do as requested and keep the schedule and find our own food so you don't have to worry about us."

With that said, he hit his three charges over the head to forcefully snap them out of their memories. They stared at him still in a slight daze. He sighed and turned to Tsunami. "Do you think I can take some rice? In this state I wont be able to get them to eat much else."

Tsunami nodded and got a spare pot and started filling it up with rice. Yagura took the pot from her when it was about three quarters full and walked to the door. When he noticed that the three weren't following him he stomped twice. "Numbers 1,7, and 9." he shouted. Their heads popped up in succession and they stood at attention. "You will follow me and we will continue our mission as stated with a few changes. After you guys snap out of this I will teach you on the job camping and survival skills. Now come on." They followed him out to the forest like little ducklings in the prder he called them.

Back at the house, Kakashi stared at Naruto, a memory stirring in the back of his mind. Sakura and Sasuke stared after the group trying to digest what they'd heard and Iruka stared after the group worriedly trying to think of a way he could help them. Tsunami was scolding Inari for his outburst as he looked guiltily after them.

Yagura sighed as he finished feeding the three kids. He then lifted their shirts and pressed a certain part of their seals. After a few years, they had convinced Jiraiya to build in a function to their seals that allowed their respective tailed beasts out in chibi form. Yagura used this function now and the three jinjuriki immediately latched on to their respective biju being unconsciously clingy when they were in this state of mind. Yagura leaned up against a rock to go to sleep.

The next morning when Yagura woke up he found Naruto and Fuu curled up beside him with their heads on his lap and Gaara curled up beside Naruto using Naruto as a pillow. All three of them were also cuddling with their respective chibi biju.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, Yagura woke up with Naruto and Fuu cuddled up to him and Gaara just a little bit away from him cuddled up with Naruto. Yagura sighed and clapped his hands together loudly to wake his three charges up. They jerked awake, rubbing their eyes and pulling their respective chibi summoned biju close to their chests. The three of them looked around the clearing, wondering where they were and how they got there. The last thing that they remember was that they were yelling at Inari.  
Gaara stared at Yagura, a question in his eyes. Yagura sighed and scratched the back of his head. "We'll eat breakfast first and then I'll explain what happened this time."  
Gaara nodded in response and looked around for food. Yagura pulled put the large pot half full of rice that he had brought with him last night. "You guys should probably stick to just rice for now. Anything lighter and you might just throw it back up." With that, Yagura divided the rice into four portions and they ate.  
After they ate, Yagura explained that they had gotten struck in their memories and that he wasn't able to snap them out of it. He'd brought them there to in the hopes that being in nature and away from outside influences would snap them out of it. The three listened and nodded once he was done telling them what had happened. Then, Naruto hopped up and yelled "Well let's get back to the house and go back to our mission!"  
The rest just stared after him effort sighing and following him back out of the forest. When they got back to the house, everybody there was just finishing breakfast. When they came in everyone kinda stared at them a bit oddly. After about two minutes, Fuu got fed up with it. "Why are you guys all staring at us!?"  
Iruka smiled calmingly and explained "I'm pretty sure their just wondering where you got those animals. You didn't have them when you left last night."  
"Oh" all three responded, staring at the chibi biju that they were all holding like stuffed animals.  
"Those are their summons. They usually summon them by them selves when they want to play, but I summoned the last night while they were out of it because they are too clingy for just me to handle." Yagura hurried to explain.  
"This is Kura-kun!" Naruto introduced, holding up the fox and smiling brightly.  
"And this is Mei-chan!" Fuu exclaimed, doing the same.  
"And this is Shu-kun." Gaara said, still hugging the tanuki.  
Everyone just kept staring.


	9. Chapter 9

Naruto, Gaara and Fuu just stared at them right back. Yagura sighed and clapped his hands together loudly. Naruto, Gaara, and Fuu suddenly turned to him and stood at attention, their biju placed on their heads so that they could do so properly.

"Okay, today it's the Konoha's teams turn to be guard the bridge builder. we will be protecting his family and training today. Naruto, Gaara, you two will be accompanying Inari while Fuu and I will guard Tsunami. Leave five shadow clones to train with mine and Fuu's shadow clones. We'll be training in the clearing you woke up in this morning. Keep the link open and keep your summons with you. Dismissed!" Yagura then elbowed Tazuna. "Aren't you supposed to head to the bridge and get started for the day?"

"Oh, right. Come on you lazy ninjas! We've got work to do!" he yellled as he headed out the door. Everyone from Konoha followed after him somewhat grudgingly except for Iruka who said that he would catch up.

Iruka waited til his team was out of sight then pulled Yagura off to one side. Yagura saw the look on his face then sighed and waved Naruto, Gaara and Fuu outside. After they left, Yagura turned to Iruka and told him "If you want to ask something then get on with it. I need to go and train the others."

"What type of group is Teru?" Iruka asked, worry clear in his eyes. "When I look how your group reacts to each other I though you guys were like a family or a group of childhood playmates. But ever since last night there have been times where it seemed like you guys have had training like that of Root from our village, and they were disbanded because the training was too hard and cruel for the children it was meant to train."

Yagura stared at him and sighed. "There is no reason that I need to answer you, however, I know that you are only asking out of concern for them, so I will answer you anyway. Everyone that was brought into Teru was taken from a village that discriminated against them and treated them horribly. We were raised together so we do regard each other as family. However, because of the say we were treated on out previous villages, there were times where some or even all of us would withdraw into ourselves and get trapped in our memories, completely unresponsive to the outside world. It was apparently impossible to get us to eat and some times these episodes would last weeks at a time. Eventually, the one who rescued us trained us to the point where there were things that we responded instinctively to. He realized that he could use this and started to do things a bit differently. That instinctive response to some things after a while allowed him to get us to keep our bodies properly fed among other things. He decided that it was fine to keep us trained like that if it kept us fed and once we started taking missions, he taught the older kids better mental discipline and what it was that we were reacting to so that we could continue to function on missions even if the younger minds were not all the way there. They have gotten a little better so they'll snap out of it pretty soon. But the fact that their still reacting to it means that they have not completely come out of the shock of revisiting some of their memories. They'll snap out of '"eventually so you don't need to worry about it."

"Okay, thanks for explaining it to me." Iruka said as he left to catch up with his team, mind though still a bit troubled more relieved than anything.

 **A.N. Sorry this is so short. I'm trying I really am. I'm just not focused. This should explain a few things about how their acting. I'll try to get things back on track next chapter. Leave a comment if you need a better explanation.**


	10. Chapter 10

Yagura went out to collect Fuu and all of the Teru squad sent their shadow clones to the forest to train. Yagura and Fuu followed Tsunami into the village to get food and Naruto and Gaara followed Inari as he went to play with the other village children.  
As they were following Tsunami around, Fuu looked around excitedly at the first village she's been in since she was two and Yagura calmly observed the interactions and the attitudes of the villagers, along with what was in most of the stores. Very few stores were open, and the ones that were open didn't have much to sell. The little food that was being sold looked pretty old, all wrinkled up and moldy. The only food that there seemed to be plenty of was fish, but as this place was an island, that's not all that surprising. As opposed to a normal village, where the market would be a bustling hive of activity, this market was rathe desolate. With the exception of Tsunami and a handful of other people buying stuff, the only ones out other than the food vendors were beggars, mostly underfed children, who sat around, hoping for even the tiniest scrap of food.  
Fuu sighed, disappointed as she noticed the same things and got her rations out and handed them out little by little to the children that they passed. Yagura wordlessly passed her his rations as well and thought about the wild plant he saw in the forest yesterday, including the ones that were not really edible for normal humans but would probably go down with minor fuss for a jinjuriki. Yagura decided that it would be good training for them as a group and determined to take Naruto and Gaara's rations from them later that night. He would of course be saving them for the next time he went to the village.  
Yagura picked up the bag of rice that Tsunami just paid for and ignoring her as she protested, very firmly told her " I will carry this and you will not waste the little money your family has left cooking for my team. That bridge your father is building has to be pretty expensive, and there is no way that you can easily pay to feed eight extra mouths when you can't pay for a properly ranked mission."  
Tsunami blushed at Yagura's accurate claim of the money situation in her family, but still protested " We're not even paying your group for this mission, the least I could do is feed your team."  
Yagura waved her off saying "We'll make your village pay once your village is able to. I told you this before didn't I? We'll work out a type of payment after the mission. Plus, I still need to teach my team some survival skills, so you not feeding us will actually be pretty advantageous for me."  
Tsunami frowned, but sighed and nodded, giving in. Yagura have a brief smile in response and moved back to where Fuu was, carrying the bag of rice like it was a trophy. It was a pretty odd sight, but Fuu giggled at his manner and jumped up so that she was sitting up on his other shoulder. Yagura stumbled, rolled his eyes, and followed Tsunami back out of town.  
As they were getting close to the house again, they ran into Naruto an the others. Naruto excitedly grabbed Yagura and Fuu's ands while happily babbling about all the games that he and Gaara played with the village children all the while pulling them towards the house. Gaara followed silently behind them, adding his input every once in a while, but mostly just watching in amusement. Tsunami went ahead of them to start preparing dinner, and Inari hurried behind her to go help out and so that he could avoid the Teru team.

 **Hey look! An update! It is a rare and mystifying thing isn't it? It's a bit short, but it is something. I'll try to update again soon, but I don't plan stories before writing them, so I'm really susceptible to writers block. I was told to update though, so I did.**


	11. Chapter 11

Time passed quickly, if a bit monotonously. Team seven and the Teru squad continued to switch off on guard duty, switching between the bridge, Tsunami and Inari. Those from Teru gave all their rations to the people in the village and continued to sleep out in the forest and scavenge for food. Yagura, being rather pleased with this arrangement, made everyone gather twice as much as they needed and together with Fu, taught Naruto and Gaara how to cook. In the morning, whoever was going into town with Tsunami would take the extra food with them and hand it out to the people in the village-when team seven were the ones guarding Tsunami, Yagura entrusted this task to Iruka. All of Teru continued to make shadow clones that trained in the forest while they were attending to their assigned tasks. Nothing really happened for the first month or so except Naruto Gaara and Fu learning some new games from playing with the village children when they were assigned to Inari, and them, along with Yagura starting to help out with the bridge because people continued to quit working due to fear of Gato and his men.

Yagura, Iruka, and Kakashi grew suspicious as time wore on, paranoid of what Gato could possibly be planning.

One day, while heading out to their usual clearing in the forest, Teru stumbled upon a boy in the forest who was wearing a pink Kimono with swirl designs on it and carrying a basket. He could have easily been mistaken for a girl with his long black hair and rather feminine face, but all of Teru recognized him as a boy. They were about to pass him without a second thought when he stopped them "Excuse me, would you happen to know where I could find some medicinal herbs? I've been looking for quite a while, but still haven't found any."

The team turned to him as one, and Yagura told him "If you'll follow us to our clearing, we gathered all the herbs that we thought that we could possibly need while staying in this forest. We're willing to share if we have the herb you're looking for."

They turned back in the direction that they were heading a Haku hurried to follow them, staying a few feet behind them at all times. Yagura glanced a Fu and, taking her cue, she fell back to talk to the boy.

"So! What's your name? I haven't seen you around in the village before, and we've been here for about a month now."

"I'm Haku, I haven't really been around the village recently, my friend is rather sick you see, and I have been tending to him."

"Ah! So that's what you need the herbs for! ..." Fu continued to chat cheerfully with Haku while the rest to her team continued to lead the way, glancing back at them occasionally and communicating using their mental link.

 _"So, what do you think?" Yagura asked them._

 _"I think that he is a rather suspicious person," Gaara answered._

 _"Yeah! Yeah! He's super suspicious! Who just waves down random strangers in the forest asking for herbs? For all he knows, we could simply be wandering around this area and know nothing to herbs. Wouldn't most people just continue looking around on their own, even if they cross paths with someone else?" Naruto agreed._

 _"Well there's that, and the fact that he has a developed chakra system. Plus, he doesn't act anything like the people from around this area, even if he is dressed similarly. The people around here tend to be either submissive, hopeless, and fearful or rebellious and fearful. He is neither. Anyone from this area is generally wary of strangers too. He's obviously not from here and knows how to fight. He's either a forward idiot who knows how to fight, or he is planning something. I'm more inclined to believe that second one."_

 _"Yeah the chakra signature in the trees following us makes in pretty hard to think that he isn't up to something," Naruto agreed._

 _"What chakra signature? I don't feel anything." Gaara asked._

 _"Yeah, I don't feel anything either. It's probably the Uzumaki sensory abilities kicking in. Whoever this is must be suppressing their chakra. Be careful," Yagura commanded._

 _"Got it!" everyone chimed in._


	12. Chapter 12

Recap: The mission has lasted about 1 month. Team teru met Haku, who was looking for herbs, in the forest and is leading him to their clearing to see if they have any of the herbs that he is looking for. Teru is suspicious of Haku.

 **"Author saying stuff"**

 _"Mental link"_

 ** _"Everyone speaking together in mental link"_**

After walking of a few minutes, the group finally reached the clearing. Once they got there, teru started conversing silently again.

 _"What have you learned Fu?" asked Yagura._

 _"Well the boy's name is Haku, and he says he is looking for some medicinal herbs so that he can tend to his sick friend. However, he has a developed chakra network and seems to have some scars. Maybe from fighting, maybe not, I couldn't see well enough to tell," Fu answered promptly._

 _"Alright, we'll just go along with his story and see what happens I guess." Yagura told them._

 _"Alright"_

Yagura led Haku to a hallowed out tree stump where the group kept their herbs while Naruto, Gaara and Fu disappeared off into the forest.

The three glanced at each other, communicating silently for a while before Fu ran deeper into the forest and Naruto led Gaara off to one side, pointing first at one tree, then at another, taller one that was slightly closer to them. Gaara nodded once then jumped up into the second tree, disappearing from sight, seemingly melted into the tree and silently settled down, waiting for something to happen. Naruto stared at the spot where Gaara had disappeared for a minute before turning back around, heading deeper into the forest once again, before heading off in the opposite direction of Fu.

Back in the clearing, Yagura left Haku to look through their stash of herbs while he turned his attention to starting a fire. Haku stared admiringly at the rather large collection of herbs that they had, picking out a few before and stashing them in his basket before turning to where Yagura was. He sighed silently to himself before taking out a long, sharp needle and throwing it at Yagura, aiming for a spot that would knock him out, but wouldn't hurt him permanently. Yagrua dodged the needle entirely though, jumping a fair distance away from Haku. Yagura frowned a bit before attacking Haku. Rushing at him quickly, catching him around the middle with the larger hook of his staff and forcefully tossing him clear to the other side of the clearing, where he didn't stop until he hit a tree. Haku, stunned was left at Yagura's mercy as he dashed to his side and quickly bound him with the cloth on his wrist. Haku, effectively hogtied, was rather frantically trying to find a way out. After struggling for a few minutes, he stopped, realizing that he couldn't get out of the tight bindings. 'Where is Zabuza?' he thought, wishing that the men would come out from wherever he was to help him.

Right then, Gaara returned to the clearing, a large mound of sand in tow. There was a head sticking up out of the mound, though the mouth was covered, and Haku was horrified to find that Gaara had captured Zabuza. Yagura glanced up from where he was still kneeling over Haku and asked "Is that the one that Naruto sensed earlier?"

"Yeah," Gaara nodded "Naruto showed me about where he was hiding and then left to get some food. As soon as I started hearing a commotion from this direction, this guy started to move towards here, so I trapped him in my sand."

As he finished explaining, Naruto and Fu returned as well, showing up on opposite sides of the clearing, Naruto carrying a few fish and Fu carrying some wild berries and edible plants. They both sort of froze as the glanced around the clearing, noticing the captured people.

"Ahh, something happened already? So unfair, how come you guys couldn't have attacked when I was actually here? Having prisoners but having no part in their capture is no fun," Fu complained pouting a bit at Haku. The rather confused hogtied boy stared at her like she was crazy.

"Yeah, what about us, aren't we worth attacking too? I wanted to fight! I need the experience!" Naruto agreed, causing the two captured ninja to stare at him incredulously.

Yagura and Gaara both huffed out an amused little breath, finding the two's complaints to be rather funny. Gaara went to Naruto while Yagura approached Fu. Gaara shook his head a little in amusement an patted Naruto on the back, trying to console him. Yagura just ruffled Fu's hair a bit and said "Don't worry about it, my fight was pretty short anyway, and Gaara caught his guy from behind, so neither of us really got to fight much either. I'm sure that in the future you will both be able to get more fighting experience on other missions."

Naruto and Fu both pouted and Naruto said rather petulantly, "But we are almost never sent on missions since we're the youngest. All of the others get to go on exciting missions all the time, but we barely ever even get to leave to compound!"

Yagura sighed and just told them that they could take that up with Jiraiya. He then turned to the Haku and Zabuza and started rathe menacingly "Now, about you two..."

 **!IMPORTANT!  
I cross post this on wattpad. I write the chapter on wattpad and publish it then copy and paste it to here when it occurs to me to do so. In the future, If the chapter is a bunch of computer code please message me to tell me and then if you have a wattpad account and want to read the chapter go find me on wattpad. The username and story name should be the same. **

**Yeah, I'm stopping there, sorry. I have a new apreciation for those authors that post those really long 10,000+ word chapters. It's hard for me to write anything longer than 500 words at a time. To get this chapter as long as it currently is I had to stop in the middle and do some homework then go back to writing but even so, the chapter isn't even 1000 words yet! Anyway, comments and reviews are welcome as always.**

 **I'm gonna make an effort to update this more often, maybe once a week if I don't get writers block. I talked to my sister about this and she said that when she was still writhing fanfiction she would type up something 1000-1500 words long everyday and it would take her anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, and like, how! writing this took me like an hour and a half! Am I just slow?**


	13. Chapter 13

Yagura turned to the two captured ninja "Now about you two..." he started rather menacingly, "you guys work for Gato right? What has he been planning for the last month?"

"Like we'd actually tell you, he's the one paying us you know," Zabuza snorted.

"Well then, I guess I'll just let my team practice on you then," Yagura stated with a rather calm smile, causing Naruto and Fu to start jumping up and down excitedly. Gaara just stared at the captured people impassively while Zabuza and Haku stare at the group in disbelief before Zabuza scoffed.

"What do you think that a bunch of brats can do to us? We won't say a thing, right Haku?"

"Of course Zabuza, whatever you say."

The three supposed 'brats' glanced at each other.

 _'Zabuza is important to Haku isn't he?' Fu asked mentally._

 _'Looks like it. The opposite is probably true too.' Naruto agreed_

 _'Guess we know what we'll he doing then.'Fu sighed_

 _'I'll go find something I can use as a demonstration then, Fu can you get Zabuza so that I can have some of my sand back?'Gaara asked_

 _'Sure'_

With that, Fu quickly wrapped the cloth she had around her wrists around Zabuza's feet, as Gaara withdrew his sand. Naruto and Fu turned back to the two captives as Gaara disappeared off into the forest. They dragged the two missing-nin so that they were closer to each other, and set them up facing each other. As Fu and Naruto stood in the space between the two, Haku watched the two blankly while Zabuza watched the children with contempt clear in his eyes. Naruto quickly summoned two foxes that were about as large as a small horse. One had shining silver fur and was named Shiroma while the other was pitch black except for a few blew markings around the eyes, he was named Kuroshi.

The two foxes glanced around the clearing and, once they understood what was going on, began to circle the two prisoners menacingly, the black one almost biting off Zabuza's head, startling a concerned cry out of Haku before a soft reprimand and a light cuff on the ear from Naruto stopped him. Naruto explained that "No you can't eat or kill them, we're interrogating them right now!"

Kuroshi sniffed and told Naruto"I was just gonna take a little nip, it wouldn't have killed him. Plus, I haven't eaten any humans since you told me that I shouldn't."

"Awww! you listened to me! Yay!" Naruto said happily, hugging Kuroshi around the neck.

"Of course he did Naruto, you were so upset when you caught him eating one that he had to stop, of only to appease you. We can't have our kit all upset because of something that could easily be changed after all," Shiroma explained softly, nuzzling Naruto's neck affectionately.

As this was happening, Gaara came back with a large deer trapped in his sand floating along in the air behind him. Once he got back to the group, he looked directly at Haku and releasing majority of the sand so that there was only a collar of sand around the deer's neck. Free from most of the sand, the creature began to struggle frantically, trying to escape. He was silent for a moment, as if he were contemplating something before he held up an open hand. He made a fist and the sand quickly closed in on a bit of the deer's neck, blood spurting out form under the sand and staining the fur red as the deer fell still, dropping to the ground softly, dead. "That is what I will do to Zabuza if you don't give up the information you have. I will start with a finger, he won't be able to get work much if any if he can't use his hands. Afterwards, I will rid him of his leg making doubly sure that he will be unable to work, let alone fight. when I run out of limbs, I shall kill him. Give up the information quickly if you don't want anything to happen to your precious Zabuza. If you spill, I will let the two of you go and you can even try to fulfill your contract with Gato so that you can still collect that money," he stated blankly, which might have been even more frightening than if he had said such a threat with clear blood thirst.

Haku glanced at Zabuza, clearly panicked, as Zabuza stared at the crimson haired boy in disbelief. Haku glanced around, uncertainty clear on his face as he tried to come up with something that would not violate his master's contract. The bloodstained sand started floating up towards Zabuza and panicked, Haku started spilling everything, even unrelated things like how he came to be with Zabuza, trying desperately to keep his reason for living from suffering from such a fate. Once he was done, he quickly babbled out an apology to Zabuza for betraying his confidence and asked that they be let go.

The three had stared at Haku the entire time that he was babbling, shocked that their plan worked that well, and Yagura was standing right on the other side of the group, calmly noting down all the important parts of what Haku babbled. Since Haku was apparently finished, the three looked at Yagura, a little lost as to what they should do now that they had obtained the information. Yagura sighed a little, and sent the younger members off to clean up the deer carcass and prepare dinner. The three turned to the carcass only to discover Shiroma and Kuroshi, bored since they weren't needed to intimidate the captives anymore, had already eaten most of the deer, only leaving the four legs untouched so that the humans could have supper. Naruto and Fu started preparing the two deer legs for dinner, skinning it and cooking it over the fire, using some of the herbs from before to make the meat even more appetizing. Gaara began to use his sand to drill a hole in the ground for the remains.

As they were doing this, Yagura caught the cloth that the two captives were caught in and carried them a ways away from the campsite. He set them down and faced them "Thank you for the information. As Gaara said, you may go and fulfill your contract with Gato so that you still get paid. Of course, if you let it slip that you told us this information, I will hunt you down and make you wish that you had simply kept silent and let Gaara torture and maybe kill you," he threatened. Staring at the two to be sure that they understood him, he unbound them and left them on their own, heading back to the clearing for dinner.

Once he was gone, Haku bowed down low and began to apologize for the entire event once again. Zabuza simply patted Haku on the shoulder, telling him that "You make the right call Haku, why keep the secrets of a terrible employer like Gato? It's better to just betray him, possibly still collect the payment, and continue to fight another day. There's more money to be earned in the future and more fights to fight in the future after all." before leading the way back to Gato's base.

 **And done! It may not look like it, but this took nearly two hours to write. I know Haku may be a bit OOC, but I think that with the threat of Zabuza's death, and his own inability to interfere, it is excusable.** **Sorry that this isn't getting updated every week like I said, but it was spring break, I didn't really have wifi, and I'm not used to updating regularly anyway. I'll work on having more regular updates in the future.**


	14. Chapter 14

The next morning, the Teru squad made their way back to the bridge builder's house. Naruto and Fu energetically ran ahead and dragged Gaara along with them, with Yagura following them at a slightly slower pace, hiding a small smile at their antics. They got to the house well before breakfast time, right as the team from Konoha was waking up. It was quite unusual, since they usually got there right as the team from Konoha finished breakfast.

After the first night, both squads tended to stay separate, even when Kakashi's team was guarding the bridge and the two younger members were sent with the one of Kakashi's shadow clones to train while Kakashi and Iruka guarded the bridge. On such days team seven trained near the Teru squad's shadow clones and avoided the group as much as possible, much to the disappointment of Naruto and Fu, who had hoped to become friends, and the disdain of Gaara who concluded that Sasuke avoided them because Fuu had beaten him and Sakura just went along with him. Yagura was certainly satisfied with these arrangements though, the most contact his team came into with theirs was when they reported in in the mornings and evenings when the days work had been finished.

Since they got there early, the four spread out, setting up wards on the walls surrounding the house before going strolling into the kitchen right as everyone sat down for breakfast. Kakashi immediately glanced at them when they entered, thinking that something had to be up if they suddenly broke routine. He quickly checked them for any signs of hostility or injury, and seeing no obvious sign that something was amiss, turned back to his breakfast, staying alert all the same. Once they all got in, Yagura motioned for the other three so keep quiet, did a quick set of hand signs, and whispered under his breath, activating the wards and gesturing for the rest so stay seated, leaned up against the wall and waited rest of to see how long it would take for the rest of team seven to notice that they were there while absently snacking on some of the food Tsunami gave them.

Iruka noticed them almost immediately, smiled a bit to himself and went about his morning routine as usual. Sasuke noticed them next about half way through breakfast, but only because Naruto and Fu decided to have a competition to see who could make the other laugh first without making a sound themselves, and the small huff of laughter that Naruto had startled out of Fu. Sasuke, though annoyed that he did not notice them, decided to pretend that he had known that they were there the whole time, and not show any reaction. Kakashi watched him with his one visible eye curved into a slight arc as he smiled a bit at Sasuke's reaction. Sakura did not notice them at all, too busy fawning over Sasuke to notice anything else, and past the time the teru squad usually got there, started complaining that they were making here precious Sasuke wait. The other members of the Konoha team just sighed as the teru squad just face palmed, not believing that this girl could possibly be a ninja, and sort of wondering how the standards of being a ninja could afford to be so low. Well, Gaara and Yagura were wondering that, Naruto and Fu just started cracking up laughing once they finished face palming. They ended up rolling on the ground laughing, startling Sakura who had obviously never noticed their presence.

"What! When did you guys get here?! How could you have possibly snuck in without me noticing?"

Kakashi just shook his head and lightly bopped her on the head while explaining "They were here the whole time Sakura, even before you got here. You just never noticed them. They weren't even using any jutsu to conceal themselves, just staying relatively quiet and sticking to the shadows. Everyone else noticed them except for you, even Tsunami noticed them Sakura, and she hasn't even gone through any ninja training."

Sakura blushed in embarrassment before turning heart-filled eyes to Sasuke exclaiming "You noticed them Sasuke! You're so observant. You're the best! no wonder you were the top of our class!"

Sasuke just scoffed at her and turned her head away, ignoring her. Kakashi and Iruka just sighed and decided that giving Sakura extra lessons separating her from Sasuke was something that would need to happen right away if she wanted her to live past the age 12. Shoving that thought to the back of his mind, Kakashi turned to Yagura, abruptly becoming serious. "So, what made you suddenly decide to come so much earlier than usual? Did something happen?"

Yagura just watched the group under half lidded eyes and stated blandly "Well, yesterday some missing nin on Gatou's pay roll approached us under the pretense of gathering herbs in the forest and I just thought that we should let you know."

Iruka immediately freaked out at the news. "What! Are you guys okay?"

Yagura just rolled his eyes at the concern. "Of course we're okay, we're here aren't we? Nothing really happened, we just captured the one that approached us and had Gaara catch the guy that was hiding in the trees. After that I didn't really do anything, I just let the kids try to interrogate them for information. They needed the practice. I thought you guys would like to know the information that they got," Yagura stated nonchalantly, shrugging a bit.

"YOU WHAT!" all of team seven exclaimed, jumping up from their seats.

"Not me, us."

"Yes, yes, whatever." Kakashi said waving the comment aside. "What did they do? There is no way that kids as young and inexperienced as them could have already learned interrogation techniques. Did you help them?"

"Of course we know interrogation techniques. They get used on us all the time. All you need to do to get information out of someone is figure out their weakness and then threaten that weakness until they give in. Those guys were easy. Only Gaara really got to do anything," Naruto sniffed, turning his head away from Kakashi as though offended by the very thought that they wouldn't know intimidation and interrogation techniques.

'What is that group teaching these kids!?' thought pretty much everybody there that wasn't from teru even as Gaara and Fu nodded in agreement with Naruto.

'What did they even do?!' thought Kakashi and Iruka incredulously.

"Well anyway, do you want the information or not?" Yagura demanded, a tad impatient.

"What did you guys find out then?" Kakashi asked, getting back to the matter at hand.

"Well, for starters, the reason that Gatou has been so quiet lately is because of us. He was only expecting one group of relatively inexperienced ninja that may or may not stick around since this village is so poor, so the fact that our group just popped up out of nowhere worried Gatou a bit, especially since we didn't seem to be working with you guys like someone from the same village might, instead we avoided you to a certain extent while still guarding the bridge builder and his family as you were. We were unknowns, even if we just look like a group of kids and with the way you guys took down the demon brothers (you forgot to mention that that happened by the way) and escaped Zabuza, he was being more cautious than usual. Anyway, so Gatou lost patients so he sent the boy, Haku, to investigate us and take us out if possible. Well, that spectacularly failed, since he got captured by us, but anyway, whether we were deemed a threat or not, Gatou was planning on attacking the bridge with all of his men and maybe bomb it. Gatou currently only has two missing nin employed, the boy we caught, Haku, and the guy we caught following him, Zabuza. Other than that he has two hundred bandits following his orders as well, but only as long as he pays them. The people that he hired aren't working out of any sense of loyalty, so we can take advantage of that fact."

"What do you mean take advantage of that fact? What's there to take advantage of? The village is not rich enough to pay the bandits off, and right now Gatou's got all the money, so how are you supposed to take advantage of the fact that they're only working for money?" Sakura asked, not getting it.

Gaara gave a soft sigh before explaining. "The motivation behind a group's actions is very important, especially if you are either supporting them of opposing them. If a group of people make work together for a goal because they have a common purpose, or out of loyalty, and genuine belief in their leader, then it is harder to tell how they will react when they are challenged. Will they choose to give their life for the mere chance of taking out the enemy? Will they destroy everything for the sake of their leader? Or are they unsure? Will they run in the face of the enemy? Will they die to protect their leader or their cause? It may be impossible to tell without infiltrating them and putting yourself at risk of being exposed or pulled in by the group. For example, in our group, the missions we are given do not take priority over our lives. Because we basically work for anyone that requires our assistance due to lacking a group of warriors or ninjas that can help them instead, regardless of work or pay, we accept any mission as long as there is a good enough reason. However, if said mission is deemed to be potentially life threatening, we will either call for reinforcements or pull out completely. Because we are the youngest in our group, whenever things become life threatening, we are often made to pull back and switch missions with one of the older teams. We do the mission that they happened to be on at the time as long as it is not as deadly, and they take care of ours. If we were not ninja for hire, and actually belonged to and was loyal to the place that hired us, we would probably go through with the job regardless or the risk, and possibly die for a given mission. Instead, out group completes a given mission with as little risk as possible as long as we are not given a sufficient reason to pull out. At times, members of the group or village that hired us will die for the sake of their cause, not caring if they die as long as the group is safe or the mission is successful. Even if we were in a position where we could save their live at the cost of their goal, they would not want to be saved. Because the group we are opposing is working for Gatou for the sake of money, even if we can't pay them off, as long as we make it so the costs outweigh the benefits, we can probably run them off the island or make them unwilling to work with such a risk. Of course, there is always the possibility that some of the members of the group are working for the love of battle instead of for the sake of money, but based on the information we got from Haku and Zabuza, that is pretty unlikely."

The people present that were not from teru just sort of stared at Gaara, not expecting such a long explanation from the quietest member of the group. Sakura seemed to think over the information carefully before asking "Well how would we do that?"

"We just need to completely overwhelm them in battle and make them realize that they have absolutely no chance of winning as long as they oppose us. We can run them off the island once they decide to not work for Gatou anymore, with the warning to never come back because this island can ask for help from us at any time," Yagura explained calmly "We will keep the same schedule as before; try not to give away the fact that we have more information now. They are planning to attack the bridge on the day that our group is supposed to guard the bridge since they know who Kakashi is and has heard of his skill in battle, and we look like a bunch of kids, so we'll take care of it."

"Are you sure that you won't need help? Zabuza was formidable and is Haku is following him then he must a strong fighter as well. Not to mention all of the bandits," Kakashi asked, a little worried about leaving it all up to what in his mind was just a group of kids, one of whom reminded him of his former teacher.

"We'll be fine, don't worry. We're strong, I'm sure we can take them on. We did capture Haku and Zabuza before, so I'm sure we can beat them. And if we get overwhelmed by their numbers then we can always just make enough shadow clones to even the numbers out a bit." Naruto waved off Kakashi's concern rather flippantly.

"We better get going if we're gonna go about our days like we normally do, you guys better get to the bridge. See you guys again tonight!" Fu interrupted cheerily, pushing team seven and Tazuna out of the house, quickly deactivating the wards before Kakashi could respond.

At that reminder, everyone quickly went to do their assigned duties, except for Iruka who pulled Fu off to the side and asked "What exactly did you guys do to obtain the information that your group got?"

Fu just smiled a bit and said, "Once this whole mission is done, then ask Yagura. It's up to him if he wants to give out information like that."

 **I know that this update is a bit late, but I also made it a bit longer than usual to compensate. Just to warn you, I don't know when I'll update again because I'm going out of the country for the summer and don't know how the wifi will be there.**


	15. Chapter 15

Note: Going forward, please assume that the ninjas-both squads- know why Inari doesn't believe in heroes, assume that they found out at some point in the last month that they had been staying there.

About a week after the Teru squad had captured the Zabuza and Haku, Gatou gave the order to attack. Just like Haku had said, they attacked while Naruto, Fu, Gaara, and Yagura were guarding the bridge and the team from Konoha were guarding the bridge builder's family.

Zabuza and Haku suddenly appeared out of nowhere as a dense cloud of fog surrounded the entire bridge.

"I'm fighting Zabuza! You guys can figure out fighting Haku by yourselves!" Yagura shouted, jumping away from Naruto, Fu, and Gaara and pulling Zabuza with him by catching the back of the bandages that hung loosely around his neck with the smaller hook on his staff and trapping his arms with the bandages wrapped around his own wrist. Even though it only took Zabuza a few seconds to free himself, they were already on the other side of the bridge and clear of the thick fog surrounding the others by the time he broke out of the bandages and dropped to the ground. Zabuza quickly pulled up more fog, but Yagura blew it away as soon as Zabuza was able to call it up, so Zabuza resigned himself to a fight without his fog obscuring his form from his opponents. As such, the two of them began to fight each other at each other with their weapons raised.

On the other side of the bridge, Gaara threw up a dome of sand to prevent Haku from rushing over to help Zabuza and a smaller one to guard the bridge builder before saying "You guys can fight him yourselves, I'll just watch this time, Shusaku and I need practice maintaining these domes anyway."

"I call dibs!" Naruto shouted out, leaving Fu behind as he suddenly charged at Haku.

"No fair! I want to fight too! Naruto you jerk! get back here! I want to fight him!" Fu yelled after him, stomping her foot and pouting a bit when Narut showed no sign of listening to her.

"Just fight them together, you need to learn how to share anyway," Garra called after them, as he sat down to watch the fight.

"First one to land a hit on him gets to take him down!" Fu suggested.

"Fine."

With that The two of them started to try to attack Haku, who made a wall of ice mirrors that was just smaller than Gaara's sand dome. (He didn't have much sand with him so the dome wasn't really all that big.) Gaara was on the very edge of the ice mirror's reach, and Haku tried to attack him, but the sand dome just shrank a bit, and gave up a little bit of it's sand to defend Gaara. After many unsuccessful attempts to hit him, Haku gave up in favor of dodging a kunai from Naruto who, like Fu, had stopped to see if Gaara would get the first hit on Haku. Seeing that Gaara was just sitting there not really interested in fighting, Naruto decided to force Haku to fight either him or Fu instead.

Fu likewise decided to attack and speeded infront of Naruto, purposefully cutting off the path and successfully landing a blow to Haku's shoulder. Haku seemingly melted into on of his mirrors and started attacking from there with his acupuncture needles.

Naruto, a bit disgruntled that Fu landed the first hit, plopped down next to Gaara with a huff. Laying his head on Gaara's shoulder and watching Fu fight Haku sulking all the while.

Fu was doing her best to take Haku down, but she was having a hard time. Haku was really fast, she couldn't keep up with him, and Haku kept melting into his mirrors, at which point it was impossible for Fu to attack him. Every time he left his mirrors to attack, Fu tried to grab him with the wrappings that were always around her wrist, but she fell just barely short every time. She was getting frustrated, loosing control of her chakra which made the bindings that she was manipulating with her chakra even harder to control, making it miss Haku by an even larger margin.

Her chakra was steadily getting more and more agitated, getting hotter and making the air hot and stifling. Haku shuddered a bit, unsettled, but he decided that this was a good thing, being so agitated that the very air changed meant that she wasn't thinking clearly and would probably not be able to find a way to defeat him even if she originally had the ability to do so. Haku just kept trying to attack without killing these kids.

/

Meanwhile Team 7 from Konoha were watch the bridge builder's house. Both Tsunami and Inari had stayed in that day and were cooking together in the kitchen. Kakashi and Sasuke were out in the forest doing chakra control training. Sakura, who had already walked up the tree, was with Iruka in a different room, listening to Inari and Tsunami. Iruka was trying to discuss different training ideas with Sakura, but she kept getting distracted with thought of Sasuke. Iruka just sighed as Sakura started squeeling for the umpteenth time.

Iruka decided to leave and check on Sasuke's training and hopefully come up with a way to get Sakura to focus, trusting that Sakura could handle anything that came up and figuring that nothing would happen since nothing has happened in the last month that they had been guarding the bridge builder's family. Sakura just kept squealing and giggling, messing with her hair and trying to find a style that would impress her precious Sasuke.

A scream pierced the air, shattering the Sakura's delusions before it was becoming muffled. Sakura got up swiftly as Inari started shouting for the man attacking them to let go his mother. Sakura hurried into the kitchen to find a mercenary with beady eyes, and a cruel smirk on his face, with his arm hooked around Tsunami's neck in a choke hold. Inari was standing between them and Sakura, shakily pointing a knife at the mercenary, desperately trying to keep his eyes open through his tears. Sakura quickly pulled a kunai from the kunai sheathe strapped around her thigh, and lunged at the mercenary, trying to make him let go of Tsunami, but the bandit tightened his grip on Tsunami and shifted to grab the sword resting at his waist, which he held up against Tsunami's throat, cutting into her throat enough to draw blood but not enough to kill her, forcing Sakura to retreat for fear of making him slit Tsunami's throat.

She watched the mercenary carefully, searching for any opening so that she could save Tsunami and hopefully get the mercenary away from the house. Before she could though, a mercenary came up from behind her and attacked her with his cudgel. He caught her off guard, but didn't manage to take her out on the first hit. He was aiming for her head, but she was much shorter than he had anticipated, especially with her a bit shorter than usual, crouched in her fighting stance. As it was, he only managed to stun her, the blow glancing off her shoulder before hitting her head as he had originally intended.

Sakura quickly jumped to the side to avoid getting hit again, and watched both mercenaries apprehensively, knowing that she wouldn't be able to take on two of them at once, not if she was trying to get back a hostage on top of trying to keep Inari from getting captured as well. She might've stood a chance when there was just one of them, but she didn't really have any fighting experience outside of the academy, and even among her class, she wasn't exactly the best fighter, really only average for her class, and with no fighting experience outside of it.

She stared at them, motioning for Inari to get behind her, trying to, at the very least protect him. "Inari, you have to listen to me, you have to run, I'll keep them off your back and help your mom, but I can't do as well, while trying to protect you as well. Run and get help, Inari."

Inari hesitated for a moment, but took off towards the woods where he knew that Sasuke would be training, yelling for help the whole way. Just as he reached the edge of the clearing though, more mercenaries came out from among the trees and intercepted him. Inari swerved to try to avoid them, but was caught, even though he went as far as driving the kitchen knife at the leg of the one who grabbed him, only getting free for a moment before getting grabbed by another mercenary. _No one will come save us, heroes don't exist after all._ He thought, giving up just as a voice came out of nowhere "Hey! what do you think you're doing!"


End file.
